Category: Czech

Today a friend/colleague asked me if we could go over her lesson plan before her observed class. As we did, I realised I use different techniques for teaching dialogues than she does and thought they might be worth sharing. Also, following the hoo-ha of my two latest posts, I’m writing a humble, practical text to …

I am a freelance teacher. I work for language schools (aka agencies), universities, companies and private clients. Over the years I have come to realize that a large part of my success as a teacher is down to being organized and I have developed several course administration strategies which I’d like to share with you. …

I have a love- hate relationship with warm-ups. There have been times in my life where I had to do a warm-up in my class otherwise my ex-boss would get mad (I LOVE my ex-boss and we are still friends). Later, I realised that a warm-up planned for 10 minutes can easily stretch to 45 …

I would like to provide a framework here of a first lesson in Czech as a Foreign Language which I have successfully delivered several times and developed over a period of a year. The basic outline comes from my dear co-teachers at university to whom I am really grateful for sharing it with me. The …

In this post I will explain the procedure of teaching the adverbials of location and giving directions as indicated in my previous post. Each time I teach location, in whatever language I happen to be teaching, I use LEGO bricks. It may not be particularly original, but it’s the most effective method I know of. …

Our next task resulted from our needs analysis. However, I was facing some very difficult choices. Before I tell you how the task went, let me explain a little the problems Czech learners encounter when learning how to tell where things are. 1. The underlying principle when you’re speaking in Czech about the position and …

After a few experimental lessons described in the previous posts, we were finally heading to safer ground. The language of ordering food at a restaurant appears in many coursebooks at quite early levels, and I had previously taught it on many occasions. I knew, however, I would want to make some differences. In the coursebooks, …

Disclaimer: There have been more interactive, communicative and, all in all, more interesting lessons in my career. Unless you are genuinely interested in the topic or a diehard fan of this blog, you might be better off watching the ice hockey semifinals. On the other hand, the lesson did meet its aim and was useful for …

I like doing dictations in my classes. It is a simple exercise which everybody knows. This recent post inspired me to do more of them. I do dictations in my English classes as a form of a micro-listening exercise, and I do them in my Czech classes to give students training in listening and correct …

After studying “The Weather”, our next task was Shopping. In the introductory interview, my student said he wanted to be able to buy foods in a Czech supermarket. It seemed fairly straightforward when I heard it, but less so when I started planning the pedagogical tasks. What are the tasks involved in buying food for …

The Warwick ELT, an ELT-based ezine run by a group of MA ELT students in the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, promotes informed discussion of developments in ELT and draws attention to research and innovative practices related to English language learning and teaching and teacher education.